


Hysteria

by Laurentia



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F, F/M, Pretty much everyone tbh - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 18:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10224110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurentia/pseuds/Laurentia
Summary: A/N: Based upon a fabulous graphic on tumblr. PM me if you'd like a link! Downton Asylum is open...I should say here and now that all references to mental illness are made with only the briefest of glances over wikipedia so if they're wrong I apologise, I meant no offence.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Based upon a fabulous graphic on tumblr. PM me if you'd like a link! Downton Asylum is open...  
> I should say here and now that all references to mental illness are made with only the briefest of glances over wikipedia so if they're wrong I apologise, I meant no offence.

"Are you nervous yet Mr Crawley?"

Matthew glanced sideways at the woman who'd greeted him at the front of house as they walked through the imposing entrance hall. It was stripped bare of course and Matthew could see the shadows on the walls from where furniture had once stood – he could imagine it well enough, pretty and opulent in its day before it had been sold and turned into an institution such as this. He spared the smallest thought for what had become of the former grandeur at Downton Abbey before he registered his guide's words.

"Just _Dr_ Crawley I'm afraid. I'm not quite so skilled that I've become a Mr yet."

"You've been sent to us on the highest recommendation."

"Ah yes," he smiled charmingly at her before immediately ceasing. She didn't strike him as the sort of woman who was easily charmed. "But it was Downton's reputation that drew me here."

Mrs Elsie Hughes eyed him suspiciously. Every time they had a new Doctor or nurse or orderly sent to them there always seemed to be something in their eyes that she didn't like. An air of thinking this was a romantic occupation and the house was filled with tragedy and mystery and would serve easily as the setting for a Victorian novel. Well, she always put a stop to that as soon as possible and _Dr_ Matthew Crawley would just have to learn as everyone else had.

"Be that as it may you'll still be on trial for the time being. This is a very delicate place and it can only be accessible by those who are fully committed to their profession and have no distraction."

She thought about showing him the little cemetery half a mile down the road where those who had been _distracted_ and thus caught off guard by one of the inmates were currently housed but she shelved the idea. She was trying to escape the notion of Victorian melodrama after all and a visit to the churchyard would hardly be effective.

"I'll strive to be worthy, I can assure you."

She nodded brusquely, not quite mollified but quite aware that her hands were somewhat tied. People of Crawley's skill were hardly beating down the doors to come up to the middle of Yorkshire and associate with criminally insane women.

"We'll see. You can leave your luggage in the car for now, it'll be quite safe. I'm afraid I'm a little tied up this afternoon but I've asked one of our orderlies to show you around the house."

She gestured towards the bottom of the staircase and Matthew followed her summons. There were two people at the bottom of the staircase, a man and a woman chatting quite amicably, and his mind immediately began to question which was his guide. The man was tall, dark-haired, pale and carried an air of detachment that was so insolent it could only be forced. He must be an orderly; there was the faintest trace of a smile on his features but Matthew put that down to the man's companion: shorter, light red-hair, almost as pale but not quite and mid-grin at the conversation.

Yes, he thought as he surreptitiously glanced at Mrs Hughes again, they certainly don't appear to have any distractions.

"Dr Crawley, this is Thomas Barrow, our junior nurse."

The man came towards him and reached out a hand that Matthew immediately took.

"You're the new Doc then?"

"Well I'm not assigned to anyone in particular, but Mrs Hughes has been good enough to offer me a position for the foreseeable future."

Thomas nodded along and poked his cheek with his tongue.

"A yes would have done."

Edith laughed and Mrs Hughes didn't feel inclined to step in.

"I'll be free about four this afternoon if you need to see me about anything Dr Crawley."

She swept away and Matthew looked after her for a moment before turning back to Thomas, quite unabashed by the comment.

"She has a formidable reputation in our circles, I didn't imagine she'd be quite so…" He smiled. "I don't quite know how to describe it."

"Scottish?" Edith offered with a small smile.

"Well, _austere_ I suppose."

"She's a bit of a throwback," Thomas sucked the air thoughtfully. "But she's alright and you could 'ave much worse bosses."

"Can we show him around?"

Edith looked jubilant at the idea and Matthew smiled at her enthusiasm. Whatever conversation he had interrupted clearly wasn't that important then and Thomas didn't look as put out at the idea as he had imagined the man he'd drawn her attention away from should.

"I suppose we better 'ad. Downstairs first I think Dr Crawley."

He followed them up along the passageway, paying more attention to the vigilant way Thomas looked around to the chatter from Edith as she talked about the house and its history and pointed out the odd inmate along the way. There was nothing too extraordinary so far: depression, withdrawal, paranoia, nothing to excite his attention, but he was still hopeful and when they reached the large open space that served as a communal room he immediately spotted someone that might be of interest to him.

"Who's that?"

He nodded discreetly towards the dark-haired woman. She didn't _look_ like anything out of the ordinary and that very fact gave him pause. She was quietly talking to a woman sat in the corner of the room, keeping her rapt with whatever she was saying; there were tears in the back of her jogging bottoms that looked as though they had been randomly slashed at and behind her back her fingers were fiddling with a piece of paper that she was running her thumb of the edge of with frequency.

She finally turned away from the soon forgotten brunette as Edith and Thomas followed his gaze and spotted the woman he was indicating. Eyes flashed at him with interest, with amusement and then realisation before she dismissed him and crossed the room to sit next to another woman her own age, handing over the paper.

"Introverted personality perhaps? She is talking to the others though…is there a reasons she's on her guard?"

Thomas raised his eyebrow.

"A very good one actually."

"Which is?"

Edith met Thomas' eye and he saw them share a smirk before his new colleague turned to him properly.

"She's not an inmate. She's on our side."

"Side?" Edith shot at him, with amusement dancing around her words. Thomas rolled his eyes.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't I'm afraid Mr Barrow. You mean to say that woman is an _orderly_?"

"Worse than that," Thomas looked back at the strange woman once more. "She's one of the senior Doctors."

He boggled at the woman as she met his gaze again, amusement not the only emotions evident in her features and she nodded perceptibly in his direction, acknowledging him without disturbing the woman she was now obviously assessing.

"Well I suppose at least you two look like you've actually come to work here."

Edith's eyes reached her eyebrows at that and even Thomas looked like he might laugh. Matthew looked between them and tried to fathom the joke, before slowly things began to niggle at him.

"You're-"

"One of the damned? Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Edith…"

"Sorry, I don't mean to be melodramatic but it's awfully difficult when you're locked into your room every night by a dashing man," she laid her hand casually on Thomas's arm and gave him a simpering look that was ruined by her laughter escaping. "With only novels for company."

Thomas rolled his eyes at her theatrics and reached up to remove her hand, not unkindly Matthew noticed.

"Go on, you're late for your art class."

"Fine. I'll try not to draw you as a still life Mr Barrow."

She nodded politely at Matthew and, still looking rather amused, walked away calmly. Matthew stared after her curiously.

"She finds her incarceration amusing?"

"If she didn't," Thomas started with a wry eyebrow. "She might go mad."

Matthew shot him a sharp look.

"If you'll excuse my phrasing."

"Well what's actually wrong with her?"

"Manic depression."

"Ah, I see. I take it then that she's in her hypomanic state at the moment?"

"She's been like that for months now, just happy to go along with anything and everything. Not a bit of trouble…you forget sometimes with Edith when she's like this."

Matthew nodded and saw the flicker on the younger man's face.

"I can imagine."

The Doctor he had been observing appeared at his shoulder with unnerving silence.

"Dr Crawley I presume?"

He felt his heart rate beat faster at the sudden arrival of the quick voice and spotted Thomas looking more than a bit amused as he left them to it and wandered amongst the inmates, keeping an eye on them all.

"Yes. And you are?"

"Dr Sarah O'Brien. I'm your liaison for the time you're here."

"Liaison?"

"Yes," she looked him dead in the eye without the slightest bit of confusion on her features. "I heard you were on your way so I looked into your history," she began to walk down the corridor, gesturing for him to follow her. "You're very impressive aren't you?"

"I like to think I've done well."

"Very well for your age."

"Does my age get me a liaison then?"

"No, the fact you're writing a book gets you a liaison."

Ah.

"I wasn't aware it was widely known."

"It isn't. But a young lady at your last place of work was good enough to pass the information on to me."

Her lip curled into a smile he might have called cruel if it had lingered for more than a second before she turned to head up the staircase.

"Don't worry though, I've no intention of exposing you. I was intending to help you."

"Help me?"

"At best Dr Crawley it'll take you three months to get to know all of the women and longer still to assess their problems and decide which you find the most interesting. And that's even without the ones that you're not likely to meet."

"Why not?"

"Some people spend their whole lives in solitary confinement for good reason," she muttered darkly.

"And so you propose to speed this along for me?"

She turned at the top of the staircase again, not speaking until she had opened one of the doors and stood back for him to enter. He looked around the office – clean, neat, organised to the point that a few diagnosis for Dr O'Brien were on the top of his tongue before he quenched them, and above all else, unlived in. Whatever she did here she certainly didn't spend much time in her office.

"I propose to point you in the right direction. Sit down."

He did as he was told, feeling uncomfortably like he was back at school and had been brought in front of the headmistress.

"Oh?"

"If you need it of course."

"And what if I don't?"

She leaned back in her seat and observed him critically.

"If you think you've got the lay of the land already the by all means I'll leave you to it, but some of these patients are bloody awkward at best."

Matthew smiled to himself.

"I think I'll be able to diagnose them successfully enough."

Dr O'Brien's face set into something that might have been annoyance but which Matthew couldn't entirely identify.

"Alright then, I tell you what. I'll bring one of the family-" He raised a hand to pause her.

"Can we please call them what they are?"

"No. I'll bring one of them in – my choice – and you can tell me what's wrong with her."

Matthew shook his head and furrowed his brow. What was the matter with this woman – was she under the impression that all this was amusing? He'd gotten the impression from Mrs Hughes that this was a highly serious place of work and he had expected no less, but Thomas Barrow treated the hospital as a social club and Dr O'Brien struck Matthew as the type of woman who enjoyed an uncontrolled experiment.

"That's highly unorthodox."

She rolled her eyes and reached for her telephone, punching in a few number before waiting.

"You're not in the classroom anymore Dr Crawley, this is serious medicine. Mr Carson? Can you bring her up to my office please?...Thank you."

A few minutes later, during which time Dr O'Brien had said nothing about the patient on her way, there was a knock on the door. Instinctively Matthew jumped to his feet.

The door opened to reveal a man in his fifties, dressed quite as casually as O'Brien was but with an air of seriousness about him that immediately made Matthew look upon him favourably. The man nodded politely towards him before stepping aside and gesturing for a young woman to enter.

Matthew shuddered silently.

The woman was, by all out appearances at least, rather beautiful. Long hair was pulled back neatly and clearly well-cared for and the darkness of it set off her pale face rather more dramatically than he thought it would have done if she were on the outside and saw sunlight. She glanced with bored insolence towards him before looking over at Dr O'Brien with much the same expression and taking the seat next to his.

She didn't shuffle away, which was unusual. From a periphery glance Matthew couldn't see any mania or physical signs of depression, however as she settled into her seat she tilted her head to the side and for the first time he spotted an odd scar underneath her ear. It looked almost as though someone had left an indentation of something round and about the size of a two-pence piece but no sooner had he spotted it Mary twisted her head to look at his without any censure or impression that _she_ was the one under scrutiny.

"Is this the new Doctor?"

"This is Dr Crawley, he'll be joining the staff."

The briefest flicker of emotion passed over immobile features and Matthew thought he caught a glimpse of panic.

"Why am I here? He's not my new handler is he?"

She turned her head sharply to where Carson was still standing upright. He met her eyes soothingly and shook his head without saying a word, immediately making her settle and return to the former blankness.

"No Mary," Dr O'Brien, Matthew noticed with interest, had not changed her manner in the slightest. She spoke to the inmates in the same way she spoke to the staff and he wasn't sure whether that was beneficial for them or an indication of how she felt about her colleagues. Or perhaps it was just him?

"Dr Crawley just wanted to meet one of the inmates. And I thought after three months in solitary confinement you might like to see some daylight."

Mary raised a sculpted eyebrow in the other woman's direction but got no response for her silent insolence and instead rolled her eyes and once again returned to neutral.

She's like a car, Matthew pondered. The way she switched from mild emotion to nothingness every time was positively robotic in it's method: somewhere along the way Mary had trained herself to react like this, he decided.

"I may not be your handler but I'd very much like to ask you a few questions if I may?"

She didn't move her head from looking straight in front of her but her eyes flickered in his direction and she sent a questioning look to Dr O'Brien once again and received a short nod for her trouble this time.

"I don't see why not."

Neither O'Brien nor Carson moved a muscle and Matthew resigned himself to only being granted a short time.

"May I ask your age?"

Mary matched his tone.

"You may. As of this year I shall be twenty six."

He nodded.

"And how many years have you been here now?"

"Five," she monotoned, already looking bored.

"Have you been happy here?"

"Happy?" She fixed him with a disbelieving look before turning to O'Brien. "Has he come across _Kommandant_ Hughes yet?"

"Just answer him Mary."

"Ask something else," she snarled in his direction. " _I_ wouldn't know the difference."

He nodded as calmly as he had before.

"Have you ever attacked your handler?"

"What, hurt Mr Carson?" She looked between Matthew and O'Brien with mock-hurt and dramatically wide eyes, her lips curling into a smirk as she settled on the other woman. "What _have_ you been telling him about me Doctor?"

"I haven't told him a thing."

"You seemed agitated when you thought I was replacing him. Is it a strong bond?"

Before Mary could answer O'Brien cut across him.

"You're assessing _her_ Doctor, not the way we look after our inmates."

Mary's lips twisted in amusement.

"Assessing me? Have you run out of textbooks of your own Dr O'Brien? Or are you getting me out the way because the Countess is due a visit?"

"Mary..."

The low voice came from behind Matthew and he turned his head, having quite forgotten that Carson was still there. For her part Mary stopped speaking, and gave no indication that she intended to speak again but she turned her head ever so slightly towards Carson, not looking at him, but clearly drawing his attention.

"Doctor, I think it would be wise if I took Mary back to her bedroom."

O'Brien nodded and Mary was on her feet quickly enough, rounding the chair and Matthew thought she was quite gone before she turned back and caught his eye once more, with a curious look about her. He could think of nothing to say so instead nodded vaguely. Carson gently placed a hand on his charge's back and opened the door, but thought better of leaving at the last moment and turned to O'Brien.

"I wondered if Mary might be allowed library books again. Three months is longer than we agreed on I think you'll find."

"Fine," O'Brien nodded them out and they left, Mary having the briefest smiles on her face and looking at no one but the gruff man who was closing the door behind them.

Silence reigned as O'Brien reached for the water glass on her table and dropped two pills that immediately fizzed into it.

"So what's your diagnosis Dr Crawley?"

He sat still for a moment, feeling quite shell-shocked until finally he looked up to meet her eyes. Mary hadn't been extraordinary in any particular way - even Edith, when he came to think about it, had displayed more symptoms - but there was definitely something, even if it was vague. He had to say something though, or else he would fail this test utterly.

"Well, I have an idea but you're the senior here and you've observed her for longer."

"Humour me."

"A personality disorder? I can't think of anything that fits exactly off the top of my head." He chanced.

She nodded along with an air of boredom.

"Yes, that's as close as any of us have gotten too. She seems like your classic tyrannical sadist really, but sometimes…well, she's a bit of a funny one. Can't be diagnosed. Most sadists pick on people they don't know, it's about watching other people hurt, nothing else, but Mary has never, to the best of my knowledge, done anything to anyone she doesn't know. And everyone hates their neighbours so it's hardly abnormal."

"So it's always personal?"

"The last one certainly was."

Sarah reached into her drawer and pulled out a folder which she dropped on the table and pushed towards him. Matthew took it eagerly and opened it to be greeted with a picture of another dark-haired woman, this one clearly older.

"Is this her mother?" He glanced at the name. _Vera Bates._

"No. Her mother's dead. This is the last woman that died here. Did you see the scar," she pointed at the spot just under her right ear. "On Mary?"

"Yes, it looked quite recent."

"Three months ago she got into a fight with Vera. They were never what you'd call friends, both of them were usually in solitary confinement for the sake of the other inmates and when we let them out we never let them out together but there was a bit of a mix up with that and they ended up in the gardens together. The first thing Vera did was snap a branch the nearest tree and try to shove it through Mary's ear."

Matthew furrowed his brow and looked down at the woman again. Her face was entirely neutral in the photograph but there was an odd glint to her eyes of the sort he'd only ever seen in storms.

"Why?"

"Vera suffered a fall when she was in her early twenties and lost most of her hearing from head trauma. She didn't take it too well and didn't like the thought of other people being able to hear things she couldn't, so she collected ears."

He swallowed and looked down at the fairly average looking woman staring back at him nondescriptly as O'Brien drank her painkiller concoction in one.

"Was it compulsive?"

"Very much so. Hence the attempt on Mary. But we split them up and patched Mary up and she was fine. Vera's handler was convinced that it wasn't the end of it but we couldn't see how anything could occur if we kept them both under observation but it turned out that in the night Mary was talking through the walls."

"To her neighbour?"

"Anna Smith. Extreme paranoia. Mary convinced her that the only way to save herself was to kill Vera. We're not sure when she finally managed to break Anna but about a week after the fight we found Vera…or what was left of her, naked and tied face down in her bed having been suffocated and with little 'M's carved into about thirty places."

Matthew finally tore his eye away from the woman in the picture, closing the file and placing it back on the desk away from him.

"Why are you telling me this? I'm not going to be her handler."

"No, but if you're writing a book about interesting cases I think Mary might be right up your alley."

"I was rather more interested by Cora Levinson-"

"Leave Cora alone."

There was no room for argument in Dr O'Brien's tone and Matthew met her gaze challengingly.

"I understand if you have your personal objections but how is her case anymore sensitive than Mary's? Cora Levinson killed _thirteen_ people-"

"Men. She killed thirteen _men_. If we keep her in a female environment she's reasonably well-adjusted, but if we put her into direct contact with a man she doesn't know there's more chance of you becoming number fourteen than there is you finishing your book."

"Surely she can't-"

"How old are you Dr Crawley?"

He furrowed his brow once more, feeling quite on the back foot with O'Brien already.

"How-"

"How old? It's a simple question really, Mary could manage it."

"I'll be thirty this year."

O'Brien nodded pointedly.

"So when Cora Levinson was first caught and convicted you'd have been…ten years old. Did your mother let you read the papers at the time? Or is everything you know from that god-awful book that hack produced?"

He straightened his back, caught out but intrigued.

"No, I don't remember much from the time."

"Do you know why they call her the Countess?"

"Because they found her in a bath of her final victims' blood. Well the last one before…"

"My predecessor," O'Brien shuffled forwards in her seat and took the folder containing the unmarked photograph of Vera Bates and for one dreadful moment Matthew thought she was going to show him an image of Cora's previous attendant.

"You have a choice Dr Crawley, you can have the easier, less interesting cases like Edith, or perhaps you'd be interested in a paranoiac? I still have Anna on solitary confinement but there's a plucky little thing that you might like who convinced fifteen people to join her in a suicide bomb attempt because they believed her conspiracies."

She raised her eyebrow expectantly and the feeling of being given a scolding returned to him again. But this was nonsense! He was a grown man who had been sent here to do a job and senior Doctor or not, he was not going to be dictated to by Sarah O'Brien.

"And if I want someone more interesting?"

"Then you're more than welcome to try your luck with Mary. It's a shame really, had you come a few months ago I would have directed you towards Vera. She was just as… _unorthodox_ , but rather more inclined to be the focus of a book."

O'Brien lifted up the folder to her eye line for a second before an amused look came over her face and she looked to him.

"I suppose she'll have to settle for being a footnote now."

She replaced the folder with a flourish and snapped her desk drawer shut.

"Mary then. Will I become her handler or will Mr Carson carry on?"

"It's best if Carson carries on, she responds best to him and there's no point kicking a wasp's nest after all. I'll find you someone to look after yourself if you like but Mary stays with Carson."

He nodded, quite mollified by the new arrangement. It might not quite be the infamous Countess that he had recently become so fascinated by but Mary's case seemed just as intriguing.

"Is she a killer?"

O'Brien raised an eyebrow and inclined her head with intrigue all over her face.

"Ah, that's the question Dr Crawley. And your guess is as good as mine."


	2. Chapter 2

Cora made no record of days of the week, or weeks of the year, instead she simply existed in an endless state of hedonistic malaise. Sometimes Sarah thought her patient didn't even seem to realise that it was night or day but she put that more down to the instinct in Cora to return to the superiority of her life before she had been caught. Rich women didn't care for the time of day it seemed and instead demanded food and drink as and when it suited them and as such it was getting on for nine at night and Cora was delicately making her way through a plateful of cucumber sandwiches, finally having deigned to host their bi-weekly session.

Privately Sarah thought it was more fool Elsie Hughes that she let the Bloody Countess get away with it but there had to be some perks to the infamy of having killed quite so many people she supposed. Cora was their longest serving resident now, a dubious honour that the American woman wore as a kind of badge of pride, and as the likelihood of her ever being granted release was zero the chances were she would be here until she died. Oddly, this seemed to please Cora.

"And the nightmares?"

It was routine now. For fifteen years she had asked Cora more or less exactly the same questions and received more or less the exact same answers. Sometimes Cora decided she was in an extremely frivolous mood and changed her story entirely, mostly for Sarah's amusement, but tonight she was being remarkably reticent and answered everything without much interest. And Sarah couldn't honestly say she wasn't just as bored.

"No different. Still during the time of the month."

Sarah nodded and scribbled shorthand to that effect on her pad. Sometime she used little doodles rather than dashes or lines but it would please Cora far too much to see a visualisation of her own monthly course.

"Still about being smothered?"

"Some about smothering, some about giant wasps."

Sarah raised her eyebrow at that and met the other woman's gaze with a semi-stern look. The corner of Cora's lips flickered ever so slightly.

"I could make quite the thesis about you and your phallic obsession y'know?"

Cora rolled her eyes and hesitated in delicately placing the final corner of her third sandwich into her mouth.

"Really Sarah, I'd be ashamed of you if you published something so puerile."

She chewed her food and reached for the tea she had left to cool and Sarah let her indulge for a moment. In the time she had been at the asylum the only trouble Sarah had ever received from Cora was her occasional reluctance to eat and she was hardly going to interrupt her supper when she had been permitted to stay so long in the other woman's company. She was one of the few Cora would allow to stay for any great length of time but there didn't seem much point in staying too long tonight; Cora wasn't in much of a mood to talk and she was only going to end up stuck sleeping in her office if she prolonged this more.

"I wouldn't. I've got much grander plans for you," she muttered casually as she closed her notebook, giving up even the pretence of taking notes. These pages were mostly blank. Cora usually exhibited little to no interest in what was written about her, instead rising above her incarceration utterly and completely, as though it was happening to somebody else, but Sarah had seen how quickly the blue eyes flickered over the pages on the occasions that she held the notebook at just such an angle that Cora would be able to see it. Whether she would admit it or not Cora _was_ curious what her handler thought of her and for the much-planned day she intended to leave her notebook in Cora's room entirely _accidentally_ she didn't intend there to be anything too important written down.

She glanced towards the mirror over the fireplace and wondered, as Cora delicately sipped her tea and wiped the corners of her lips, whether her subterfuge would fool the Countess for even the briefest of moments.

"I'll leave you to it if there's nothing new tonight."

Sarah scooted her chair back from the table and was very nearly on her feet when, as predicted-

"Why must we always talk about the same things?"

"It does concern a fairly significant part of your life Cora?"

Cora rolled her eyes and Sarah smirked, never failing to be slightly bemused at how little emphasis Cora preferred to put upon the eight years she had been moving around the country, killing wherever she found someone she deemed unworthy of life. It wasn't difficult to spot a pattern in Cora's murders: all men of around the same age, same build and all with questionable records regarding women. The Bloody Countess was far from being a vigilante - and Sarah didn't imagine for a second she thought her crimes were in aid of anything other than her own bloodlust - but the judge had certainly taken it into account. In another world Cora might have gone to death row and despite all that she knew the thought gave Sarah chills.

Cora might be a murderer but she was also for the most part a remarkably pleasant person and Sarah sighed and wondered whether there was anything they could ever speak about that wouldn't link inextricably back to the inevitable.

"What would you prefer? The weather? Last night's telly?"

"How's your love life?" Cora smirked as she peeled a crust meticulously from the bread.

"I told you the last time you asked."

"That was almost a year ago."

"It's still the same."

"Honestly Sarah, you're as hopeless as I am!"

Sarah raised her eyebrow pointedly and fixed Cora with a piercing look. The intention was to be stern but the effect only made Cora smile around her food, her lips clamped tightly together and her tongue making obscene bulges around her mouth as she swiped food away from her teeth. Sarah was reminded forcibly, and not for the first time, of a particularly lazy cat licking its lips after a kill.

"Of course I'm considerably more limited than you are."

"You're not alone here. You have the house-"

"A mad house?" Cora swallowed almost imperceptibly and her animalistic quality in Sarah's eyes rapidly changed from that of a contented cat to a snake preparing an assault. This was more promising material at least.

"You know we don't call it that."

"Liar, I've heard you on the telephone dear," she licked her lips and Sarah kept her face as neutral as possible, trying desperately to remember anytime she had been so foolish to let Cora overhear her. Unless it was…ah yes. Well, all things considered, it rather suited her purpose if Cora overheard her talking to _him_.

"It's none of your business what I do or say in my private life Cora," she replied smoothly. But rather than the expected narrowing of big blue eyes Cora resumed her playful expression from earlier – resembling a feline again – and raised an eyebrow.

"I thought we'd established you had no private life?"

"Maybe I lied?"

"Maybe..." Cora eyed her oddly for a moment as she reached for her tea. "Maybe you've been lying to me all along and you have a _man_ at home waiting to hear all the lurid details about what wifey gets up with the locked up women at work. Would you tell him everything that goes on?"

As far as Sarah was aware nothing _too_ extraordinary _did_ go on, unless she wasn't here to see it of course. In the corner of her eye she caught sight of the overhead lights reflected in the mirror and immediately dismissed the possibility. Cora barely took a bath without her knowing about it.

"I wouldn't betray your secrets Cora, I thought you knew that by now."

Cora's eyes flickered over her and she tried not to react to the scrutiny. Fifteen years was a long time to maintain a relationship with someone like Cora and it was inevitable that every now and then the tentative trust between them would be questioned but Sarah was quite content with that. They might take the odd step backwards every now and then but they also took innumerable steps forward to offset it.

"I trust you to act in your own interest Doctor."

Ah, they were back to Doctor. Sarah didn't need to think too strenuously to remember the last time Cora had called her by her title – seriously, not in the way they sometimes called each other Doctor and Countess in greeting – and it intrigued her to think that an admission of her intentions had the same humbling effect on Cora as Vera's demise had.

The Irishwoman had been here only a few years less than Cora and they had been reasonably friendly. As friendly as two sociopaths could be but still, Sarah had a feeling Cora missed the weekly afternoon tea with her friend; disorders and crimes ranked the inmates in the eyes of the Doctors but in Cora's estimation if you'd done the dirty work yourself then you were quite worthy of her friendship. Vera had been hands on so she'd been favoured, but she had noticed that Edith and Violet were both treated with considerably more friendliness than Mary and Sybil were.

"My interest is the same as yours. I want to help you."

Cora rolled her eyes and was quite back on form in seconds.

"Oh Sarah, what did I say about being puerile? There's no helping me now and I don't think I really _need_ help," she sipped cold, over-sugared tea and met Sarah's eye over the floral rim of the cup. "Not from proper channels anyway."

"What then?" Sarah rolled her eyes theatrically. "I've told you time and time again I can't send you off to a health spa."

"Not even if I stay handcuffed to you for the whole time?" Cora asked petulantly, her eyes dancing with sudden mirth now.

"I don't think they'd appreciate our kinks m'dear."

Laughter graced her at long last this evening and Sarah settled back in her seat, not bothering to open her notebook – if Cora told her anything interesting she'd be sure to remember it.

"But I don't think that was what you were after was it?"

"You know what I want."

"And you know I can't let you have it," she closed her eyes, debating something that should have been firmly decided in her mind by now.

"I'm not proposing taking up my career again Sarah-"

Sarah made a mental note of that word being used again, although it was far from the first time Cora had referred to her killing spree as her _career_. In the early days she'd entertained the notion that Cora might believe she had some kind of _calling_ and the murders had been part of a higher plan, before the older woman had laughed thoroughly at that analysis and told her to stop being so foolish.

" _Some_ of us are able to keep business and pleasure separate."

Sarah snorted at that before she could stop herself.

"Bit rich coming from you of all people isn't it?"

Cora shrugged lithe shoulders and placed her cup down on the table delicately. She got to her feet and before she could move another muscle Sarah did the same; it was bad enough that Cora was so much taller than her anyway and she didn't really think the other woman was likely to harm her, but it couldn't be a good idea to stay seated and looking _up_ at the other woman. Especially considering the tract of Cora's conversation.

"Perhaps. I hate to be a disappointment Sarah but it is rather late, if you're not planning on being obliging then I would rather like to take a bath."

That was that then, dismissal and nothing more. Cora wasn't going to share with her tonight and nor was she going to indulge the possibility that she might share her long concealed secrets. But Sarah knew this game too well to be drawn in. If she kept pestering Cora then the Countess would be bolstered in her opinion of her own importance and might throw her a titbit, but it would be something entirely useless – in the past she had likened it to others as guessing Miss Scarlet in the Lounge with the Knife when you were the one who had caught her in the act, but no one seemed to understand. The only other person who had gotten close to Cora Levinson since her incarceration was her predecessor and dead men told no tales so Sarah knew she was quite alone in surveying the treacherous landscape of Cora's mind.

"I'll leave you to it then."

"Will you be back tomorrow?" Cora asked conversationally as she pinned up her hair.

"Of cour-"

Cora slid into the bathroom before she could finish and the door was closed abruptly behind her, making the lone photograph on the mantelpiece fall face down and Sarah rolled her eyes and left herself. She turned the lock in the door behind her and journeyed through the house, keeping to the shadows so as to avoid anyone else. She slid the tray into the service elevator in the wall on top of the linens that needed washing.

All she needed now was to get to the glorious seclusion of her office, but alas for Sarah, that was not to be tonight. She opened the door and was immediately greeted by sharp - sharper than she would like really - blue eyes staring up at her.

"Do you need something?"

"I have a question."

"Really? I've got a headache."

"Why is Edith here?"

Sarah rolled her eyes and closed her office door behind her. She'd been forced for appearance's sake to use the room a great deal more than she was accustomed to and Dr Crawley had an awful habit of setting himself up on one of the armchairs towards the end of the day as he made his final notes. She didn't mind _him_ too much really - he was a decent sort and had a good head on his shoulders - but she did miss her solitary drink and her eyes flickered longingly towards the table in the corner of the room.

"Well I don't know if you've noticed but she's missing a chunk out of her wrist from the last time she tried to kill herself."

"No," Matthew shook his head but continued on unperturbed, as he was rapidly learning was the best course of action with Dr O'Brien. "Every single other patient here has some history of criminality and was referred here. I've looked high and low but as far as I can tell the worst thing Edith's ever done is crash a car."

"She _was_ drunk."

"She wasn't criminally insane though and she didn't kill anyone."

"Someone did end up-"

"In a wheelchair, I know, she told me. She also told me how sorry she was and that hurting that boy was entirely an accident."

She sniffed and gave up the pretence of ignoring the whiskey in the decanter, crossing the room to dump her own files on the desk before filling her glass and a spare. Matthew was the sort that would protest but he'd be more easily led towards the conclusion she wanted him to have if he had a drink in him.

"I'm sure plenty in here would tell you their crimes were an accident."

"I think there's a fair difference between being so drunk you hurtle into a tree," Matthew surprised her entirely and took the glass eagerly and easily. "And gluing plastic explosive to a fourteen year old boy that was too impressed with having an older girlfriend to know any better."

She snorted.

"How are you getting on with Sybil by the way?"

"Rather well," he leaned forward again and Sarah had the distinct feeling that she was in a common room discussing something entirely theoretical with another student once more. She didn't doubt Matthew's integrity as a Doctor for a second but his enthusiasm was going to become rather tedious. "She's responded well to our initial sessions at any rate and I don't think she's inclined to distrust me."

Was this how she sounded to Cora? It was no bloody wonder she'd been thrown over in favour of a bath. She settled into her own seat and carefully set the decanted down between them, gesturing for him to help himself when the feeling took him.

"She's been awkward in the past."

"I think she needs a permanent handler and I really don't think it should be me. She needs someone she can properly trust, like Mary does with Carson."

Sarah looked up at that. She'd been waiting for a second opinion upon what Sybil needed and she was reasonably sure that Mrs Hughes would take Matthew's word for it and hire a new nurse or junior Doctor but Sybil held only limited interest for her. Mary on the other hand was rather fascinating.

"Have you considered what you're going to do with her by the way?"

"Yes," he nodded, almost imperceptibly and entirely to himself and Sarah was sure that she wasn't included in this moment of decision. "I've arranged to meet with her tomorrow morning. I'll decide if I'm interested in continuing after the meeting."

"I'm sure you will be."

They descended into silence for a moment as two pens flew over paper, making notations in shorthand that was known only to its owner and Sarah settled back into her seat, glass in hand, and reasonably content. Cora still plagued her mind and the request the Countess had made three months ago still lingered in her mind. It was an impossibility of course but…perhaps there was a way to reach a compromise with Cora; a bit of research might be order. As long as the packaging was discreet.

Matthew sipped his drink and continued to work. Her eyes flickered over his lack of tie and the jacket that was lying over the back of the chair with some amusement; it seemed Dr Crawley was already comfortable enough in her company to indulge in relaxation, something they got precious little of with the family, and she wasn't quite sure how that would affect her projects. No doubt it would enhance his to have experienced insight but-

She smirked to herself and sipped her drink, her eyes already flickering as an idea began to form in her head. Dr Matthew Crawley needed an inmate of his very own to look after – assuming Mary didn't surprise them all and take to the young man so well tomorrow morning that she demanded a change – and Sarah, oh Sarah knew _just_ the girl for him.

"You're very quiet Sarah."

"Just unwinding."

"You still haven't answered my question about Edith."

Sarah smirked and rolled her neck sideways, trying not to grimace at the telling twinges of tension.

"I thought I'd cunningly sidestepped it actually."

Matthew smiled and inclined the glass towards her.

"You're not that cunning Doctor."

"What do you think?"

Matthew blinked and raised his eyebrows, pulling a face that Sarah found curious. It was neither considered nor knowing and instead- Good lord, was that _genuine_ curiosity? She'd almost forgotten.

"I don't quite know what to think, unless there's another crime-"

"There isn't." Sarah sighed and put her notes aside, settling in her chair as though she were about to begin gossiping with a friend. She rolled her shoulders in an attempt to lessen the ache but no relief was forthcoming.

"The owners of our," she rolled her eyes. " _Hallowed house_ are an old family by name of Strallan."

A look of understanding passed over his face and she nodded to confirm his suspicions. Poor Edith. She'd spent time with Edith in the past, doing what Matthew was doing now and getting the measure of everyone who resided in the house, before honing in on the more interesting cases; Edith, in the bluntest way, wasn't interesting – just sad.

"Her family locked her up?"

"It was _neater_ for them I suppose. You know what people like them are like. Old money and an old name that can't be tarnished for anything. Rather than letting her do her time in jail and getting her the quite available drugs she needed they thought it best to…well, you understand?"

He nodded and Sarah drank her whiskey in one, reaching to replenish it and topping up Matthew's too after he copied her actions. Thank Christ for that. She'd been half expecting him to be up Hughes' street and never touch a drop in the house; how they were supposed to function without one crutch or another beggared belief.

"She doesn't belong here, but I don't think she's _unhappy._ Thomas looks after her well enough."

"Isn't he rather young to be in his position?"

She fixed him with a pointed gaze and raised her brow.

"No younger than you. And Edith's easily managed," she supped back half her glass and finally, _finally_ felt the burn through her that meant she might sleep tonight. "You're going into the wolf's den tomorrow lad. Drink up, you'll need it."


	3. Chapter 3

A week later, with winter approaching rapidly in Yorkshire and the fog rising around the grounds of the house, seeping across the garden here and there as though it were an army laying the slowest and most inevitable siege possible, Sarah O'Brien peered out of her wide open office window in the early morning chill, a cigarette perched between her fingers as she blinked in the bright, white light of dawn and observed a similarly bleached van coming up the driveway. She tapped the ash out of the window and watched Mrs Hughes come out of the still impressive main doors, looking like the Queen of Sheba welcoming a new acolyte as she did and the van curved around the driveway sharply to stop still in front of her.

The engine ceased to roar and the young man sat next to her on the windowsill leant further out to get a better look. Sarah didn't need to: she'd seen the woman in question before and would see her again soon enough and it amused her to see the narrowing of her companion's eyes as he watched the new arrival vacate the non-descript van, holding onto the hand of the man that had climbed out before her. Mrs Hughes shook their hands and Sarah almost rolled her eyes – you could always rely on Elsie Hughes to be unfailingly proper even after Sarah had spent much of the night before telling her about the crimes the neat and well put together woman had committed. By light of day the red head didn't look like much, her hair was groomed and tidy under her hat and in the mix of tweeds and with her handler carrying her luggage Sarah thought she looked like a squires wife staying for the weekend.

She smirked to herself with satisfaction – this one was certainly going to put the cat amongst the pigeons. The group vanished underneath Sarah's window, into the main entrance and silence reigned on the driveway.

"She's not for Dr Crawley is she?"

Sarah shook her head to the negative and tapped the ash off her cigarette again, noticing with some annoyance that she'd let it lie idle between her fingers while she watched the arrival; she channelled the annoyance at the waste and at being asked a question she didn't want to answer fully into glaring at Thomas and watched him mentally retreat.

"Course she's not. A fine lady like that needs someone with skills more suited to her and Dr Crawley needs someone more suited to his." She glanced out of the window where they had been, still reeling with her triumph. She'd managed to arrange for the transfer of two patients at the same time and the added boon of their money, along with the rather wonderful fact that they both already had personal handlers rather than stretching the Downton staff, meant she'd been able to search around for a new nurse to help Thomas and take over with Sybil – all in all she was rather pleased with herself and the added bonus of Elsie Hughes' face when she'd realised how influential a Doctor she didn't particularly like was becoming had made Sarah's day. "She was the icing on the cake."

"Our partners seemed to think it was a concession on my part to take her along with the one I wanted." Sarah smirked deviously and Thomas furrowed his brow but looked impressed nonetheless. He didn't know what her plan was but he knew from experience that it was well-worth being one of the people that Dr O'Brien was up to something even if he didn't know the details. He could hazard a few guesses though, knowing Sarah as he did and he credited himself with knowing her better than most: certainly she wasn't as candid with anyone else as far as he knew.

"What's her story then?" He sent ash flying out of the window in a neat curve and looked out across the grounds. "Is the new high-security patient? Only some of us 'ave been wondering with Vera gone whether we were due a new one."

Secure rooms were not few or far between at institutions like theirs the country over, but the rooms at Downton were usually rather sought after. The house having been what it was in times gone past there was a certain prestige in staying there and even if past glories weren't enough, the amount of money the residents – or their families – paid to keep their female relatives in the very height of style while they were looked after gave Downton an air of exclusivity that many hungered for. Downton only had two secure rooms and for the last five years only Vera and Mary had lived in the bowels of the house and before Mary Thomas supposed there must have been someone else but when he'd arrived she was already there. She was younger than him and yet she seemed to have been here forever and in her eyes he had seen abject apathy: Vera's eyes had twitched as she tried to follow the conversation but it was Mary that had frightened him.

He'd only ever been down there once or twice himself; firstly during his tour of the house when he'd arrived and Thomas had never been so glad in his life to be considered too inexperienced for something as he had the moment he'd set eyes on those two. He'd limited himself to hearing titbits from others who were either braver or more foolish than him and took on the job, but he was quite happy in the lighter parts of the house with Edith and the simplicity of her cycle of depression, rather than walking on eggshells with more volatile women.

Still, there was something rather deliciously intriguing about a mind that had committed crimes like that and there was a part of his professional curiosity that found then oddly appealing. Then he remembered what Vera had looked like when he'd found her and he decided he'd wait for Dr Crawley's book to sate his interest instead.

"Don't trouble yourself with her Thomas. I'm sure the rumours will start soon enough as it is."

"You're not going to tell me are you?"

"No. Doctor-patient confidentiality still exists you know?"

He snorted and threw his cigarette out of the window.

"Not here it doesn't. At least tell me who she's for."

"No one. She's already got someone."

Thomas frowned. That was unusual. Most of the patients didn't travel with a pre-assigned handler, unless they were particularly dangerous. Which only added extra intrigue to the mystery redhead.

"Who?"

"Never mind that. Go on," Sarah raised an eyebrow and Thomas pulled his side of the window closed; he knew her too well to push his luck. "Go and see to Edith and stop worrying about her-"

"It's not right though. There's Dr Crawley without someone to work with and Lady Muck's turning up with a personal handler. By rights she should be going to someone here-"

"I'm not running a bloody dating agency. He'll get his patient, don't you worry."

* * *

"If you're going to be uncooperative I really don't see the point of carrying on with this exercise."

Mary rolled her eyes and contained the huff that she desperately wanted to give. This was easily the third time in as many weeks that Dr Crawley had made such a pronouncement and as per usual she was hardly going to _beg_ for his company after he'd been inflicted on her in the first place. Against expectation he had proven himself a reasonably intelligent conversationalist but that was hardly going to make her divulge secrets that she hadn't revealed to Mr Carson, who she liked, or Dr O'Brien, who she at least had some respect for having requested, and been given by a silent Carson, a record of her training. Despite her situation Mary refused to interact with anyone who wasn't at the top of their game and she was fully aware that the amount of money her family pooled into the house meant that if she really threw her weight around then she would get her way.

So far she hadn't been inclined to play her hand, but it was reassuring to know that it was there.

"Perhaps you should leave in that case?"

"I'd hate the throw away weeks of hard work," he looked _so_ very earnest as he gestured sweepingly to his notes that Mary had to force herself not to laugh.

"Three weeks Doctor. Amounting to six sessions, and that's been what? All of five and a half hours work? I'm sure you'll get over the loss of time."

Matthew raised an eyebrow and looked down at his notes: she was quite right of course but then there was precious little that Mary didn't know and after the time they'd spent together he was rapidly becoming less and less impressed with her all-seeing eyes. The fact that she had been counting the hours they'd spent together going over the same tediously boring details couldn't bode well; he'd tried to divert the conversation towards more revelatory matters, tried to ask her how she felt about this or that but been met with a stony silence and a vaguely bemused twitch of dark eyebrows and he was at a loss to discover _why_ Dr O'Brien had been so adamant that he'd find her interesting. She was in a way he supposed – the glacial wall she kept around herself was rather impressive and there was little doubt in his mind that there were untapped secrets in her mind, but she was no damaged case to be wheedled into admitting her crimes and moving from there; whatever Mary had done she was pleased with herself and particularly, he thought, the fact that she had gotten away with it.

So far he had learnt little of her past: Mary had been born and raised in a pleasant enough household, her had mother passed away when she was so young that she couldn't remember her at all, her father had doted on her, then remarried. Mary's deterioration, most of the notes said, could be traced back to then but Dr O'Brien had hinted to him several times now that there was certainly more to Mary than met the eye and something as simple as anger at a parent who'd remarried seemed far too textbook and well... _boring_ and if there was one thing that Mary wasn't it was boring. Her step-mother, who according to police statements had been a reasonably kind woman, if not overly emotionally invested in her brand new teenage daughter, had been butchered rather mercilessly and though it seemed that everyone _knew_ it was Mary, Matthew was yet to find anything that proved concretely that Mary had wielded the knife herself.

As she hadn't been forthcoming when he'd asked her how she felt about the other patients at Downton he doubted she was itching to tell him the gory details of her history just yet.

"I'm sure I will. They're bringing me someone new today I think."

"Well it'll be nice for you to have something to do with your time I suppose."

He frowned at his notes but wasn't entirely undeterred.

"I have something to do with my time Mary. I could come to see you more often."

Mary met his eye with as innocent an expression as he'd ever seen on her face.

"Only if you bring me a present Dr Crawley," the expression rapidly deteriorated and he could see mild amusement coming back. "Mr Carson always brings me presents."

 _Ah yes, Carson_. He'd been meaning to have a few words in private with the older man but so far he'd been unable to; either Mary appeared at just the right moment and ignored him in favour of asking Carson politely to take her somewhere – which he always did – or else Mr Carson didn't have time and left with haste. Though Dr O'Brien had laughed off the suggestion that there was something amiss with the two, Matthew couldn't help but think that it must be deliberate. He'd managed to speak with everyone else without too much trouble and yet Mr Carson eluded him. Twice he'd tried to corner him in Mrs Hughes' office, reasoning that even Carson wouldn't be able to ignore his questions point blank if the house director was present, but she had seemingly sensed her long-standing employee's reluctance and dismissed Matthew herself.

"What would you like?" As the words left his lips he knew that they were unwise and the flicker in Mary's eyes told him that he had definitely misspoken. "That is…what could I bring you?"

No, that didn't sound much better really but he left the question between them. Mary tilted her head and got up from her chair by the window, languidly crossing the room and reaching up to run long fingers over the spines of several books piled onto one shelf.

"Something to pass the time would be nice."

"Books." He nodded to himself and internally breathed a sigh of relief. If Mary was after something like books or games to pass the time then he couldn't imagine Mrs Hughes would object too heavily and he'd heard from O'Brien on his first day that Mary was allowed to read as she pleased after her time in solitary confinement up in the attics. He'd visited those rooms as a matter of interest and found them cold and unpleasant; they weren't inhuman or anything quite so dramatic but they were so far away from the bustle of the rest of the house that absolute silence reigned and there was very little by way of comforts. The most homely thing about them were the names on the doors of people long dead who had inhabited them years before when the house was still a private residence and servants filled the attics, but even the names were morbid in their way, etchings of loopy writing glued up for the duration that poor soul had slept there before being covered up with a new name with only the door to remember them.

"I can bring you any books you like."

"Something romantic." She didn't look his way but fingered the spines critically, brushing away dust he couldn't see "Edith always has the Walter Scott out of the library and I swear the Countess eats them."

Matthew smiled at that.

"She's quick to lose things I take it?"

"She can always find something if she wants it."

"You'll need more shelf space," he observed idly, closing his notebook, knowing full well he was getting no more from her today. However, at least there was some progress if she'd asked him for something.

"Get Mrs Hughes to have the ones next door moved in here," she took her seat again smoothly and after her eyes darted quickly to his reticent notebook the ghost of a smirk came over her lips. "Vera doesn't need them anymore."

"No," he ignored the mention of Vera, although he longed to strike a line next to the tally he'd been keeping of how many times Mary mentioned the woman. "But the new arrival might, I heard people moving around when I came down here."

Mary's face, usually so controlled no matter what was being said to her, fell immediately and she radiated intrigue before she could stop herself. Matthew watched the thought form in her head before she spoke and knew that though she was still holding up a reasonably placid face there was the slightest hint of panic in her eyes.

"I didn't know she was coming down here. Mr Carson said that your new patient was quite boring."

"Well I don't know what Carson's been told," he got to his feet and moved towards the door, planning to leave with the upper hand for once. "But I doubt she'll be as uninteresting as all that."

As if on cue he heard a loud thud from the other room on this corridor and almost smiled himself at Mary's stricken expression.

"I'm almost sorry Vera's gone." He raised an eyebrow enquiringly and noted that being angry made her more inclined to be cooperative. Mary liked to be in control of her world it seemed and she didn't deign to elaborate on her statement, and instead merely stared at him, as though her new neighbour was his fault.

As he closed the door behind him and turned his key in the lock he was struck by the thought that Mary might be objecting to the noise of the new arrival, but she might just as easily be angry at the sudden lack of privacy: if the notes were accurate then Vera had been all but deaf and would never have heard Mary doing a thing. It was a possibility and he took a moment to open his notebook and scribe his thoughts before they left his mind, adding a stroke to the tally as he did so and taking it up to a round dozen.

A door at the other end of the hallway opened and a tall man with red hair came out, pulling the door to but not locking it as he should. Matthew frowned and watched him turn towards the stairs.

"Hello," he chased after him and caught his attention and soon had blue eyes trained upon him.

"Can I help you?"

"Oh, no, I'm not lost. I'm Dr Crawley," he held out his hand and long, strong fingers grasped it to shake.

"Richard Carlisle."

"Are you escorting…?"

He gestured with his head towards the closed door, behind which concealed the new patient, still not quite sure how he should refer to the women. O'Brien still called them the family sometimes and now he wasn't sure whether she did it entirely to mock him, but there seemed to be a colloquial lexicon amongst the staff that he hadn't quite mastered yet.

"Yes. I'm her handler."

"Oh." Matthew frowned. "I thought she was for me."

"I doubt it Doctor," Carlisle smiled wryly as he looked back at the door, behind which Matthew heard the scuffle of feet and someone's laughter. "She'd eat you alive."

* * *

Sarah O'Brien was smoking again as she stood in the morning chill herself this time. She was up long before anybody else because Mrs Hughes had decided it was only fair for her to take a turn in greeting a new arrival, especially as she had been so smug about getting her in the first place. Sarah was more than happy to acquiesce – she wanted to be the first to see this particular pair so it suited her down to the ground. She hadn't been home at all, instead curling beneath a blanket and amusing herself for the night, her heart racing a mile a minute at the fruition of her plans. She'd have collected the new pair from the station herself but for the fact that it wouldn't be at all professional and protocol demanded that patients be transported properly, although speaking with the girl's handler on the phone last night she'd been assured that the new arrival could barely _stand_ on her own at the moment, let alone run away, or indeed be a danger to anyone else.

And where would she run if she tried? The fog was getting denser by the day and soon the early morning effluence would permeate the afternoons and evenings too and she and the rest of the staff would be bringing provisions to the house, taking rooms that were free for the odd night and staying here between shifts for the sake of not being run off the road and crashing. The winters up here were terrible and remote and Sarah was already looking forward to enlivening the winter months.

A roar of engine at the bottom of the drive caught her attention and the van that was almost camouflaged by the fog came into view, weaving the same path up the driveway as it had done yesterday morning. She stubbed out her cigarette and kicked at the gravel to cover it up, wiping her hands on the side of her trousers in a faint attempt to get rid of the smell. It didn't much matter though, the morning mist made everything smell damp and the dying or dead foliage that littered the grass was beginning to rot. There had been a late bloom of apples no one had thought to bring it, because no one ever ate them, sour as they were, and now the grass showed the telltale signs of where fruit had rotten and stuck to the earth and the smell covered any nicotine.

The van stopped a few feet from her and she smiled at the huddled girl inside, extending her hand to help her out as her handler got out on the other side and hurried around the vehicle, bags in hand.

"Good morning Miss Swire."

"Lavinia, please."

The young woman that shook her hand looked like she hadn't eaten in a fortnight and was deathly pale, her eyes were sunken and dull, her cheekbones poking sharply over thin lips that attempted a smile, but didn't get very far and the hand in hers was so spindly Sarah thought she might snap it. It was to be expected of course after the poor thing had endured such a debilitating bout of pneumonia and she was already getting better but Sarah couldn't help the long dormant part of her that was a physician still looking over the girl and assessing her general state. Lavinia was much worse that she'd been the last time Sarah had seen her, little over a year ago now when the younger woman had first been interred and Sarah had been offered a job in London and gone so far as to view the hospital that held her.

The handler was intriguing too. Unlike many elsewhere, but very in-fitting with the way they operated here, there seemed to be a real bond between the two and Sarah found it oddly endearing; despite Lavinia's incarceration they were both mostly harmless and she'd liked the idea of surprising everybody by bringing them both.

"It's a pleasure to see you again Mr Lang."

She turned from the girl and took his much larger, warmer hand in hers, earning a small smile and a polite nod for her trouble. She raised her eyebrow and pressed her lips together to prevent the smirk – Andrew Lang certainly hadn't been so formal the last time she'd seen him.

"And you Doctor. It's a nice change of scenery to be out of London, the airs much fresher up here."

"Yes," Lavinia piped up and smiled slyly, already looking a little more robust for not being in a moving vehicle anymore. Sarah couldn't really blame her with the way Mr Taylor drove but she didn't miss the sideways glance towards Andrew that only made the girl smirk further; given that he had started to talk about the weather Sarah couldn't blame her for it. "A fresh start too. Although Andrew tells me that I'll know one person already?"

"She arrived yesterday. I don't think she's been out of her room since."

"Oh no," Lavinia smiled wryly and reached for Andrew's offered arm to help her towards the front door. "She won't deign to mingle with the rabble."

Lavinia and Andrew shared a look and Sarah watched them warily. They seemed relatively benign but one never did know for sure; for the time being she put her concerns aside though, this was a good day, she'd finally managed to poach two women she'd long since wished were under her jurisdiction and she hadn't seen Andrew Lang for a long time. She had plans for him too.

She smiled and gestured towards the door, letting them lead the way.

"Do you think she'll settle in?"

"No," Lavinia said lightly, not smiling anymore but instead looking pitying.

Sarah nodded in acceptance and let them get ahead of her, waiting until they were inside and couldn't see her properly before a smile of absolute satisfaction graced her face.


End file.
